Letter writer's Nazi comment went too far

Published January 29. 2013 12:01AM

Charlotte Kading Stonington

I can't possibly be alone in wondering why some people find it appropriate to compare any aspect of contemporary politics here in the United States to Nazism, can I? Anti-Obama protestors' signs that liken our current, democratically-elected President to Adolf Hitler have always made me uncomfortable, but the recently-published letter, "Watch out, television police are monitoring," (Jan. 21), went too far.

The writer compared Fox News viewers, who felt threatened by David Collins' recent criticism of the fact that local Dunkin Donuts shops play the channel on their TVs, to French and Belgian captives who had to listen to their radios in the attic during Nazi occupation.

The people that Mr. Tebbets described would have been killed if discovered. Adolf Hitler was responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent people, including not only Jews and homosexuals, but also political dissidents.

As a student minoring in History at the University of Connecticut, one fundamental idea that inspires and motivates our department is that if we teach the gravity and importance of events like the Holocaust, we will prevent them from ever happening again. To belittle these events in this way is to seriously impede this process.